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Friday, October 5, 2012

The Twelve Tables of Roman Law

jakir

The term "Twelve Tables" Latin Lex XII Tabularum, the earliest written legislation of ancient Roman law, traditionally dated 451–450 bc.
The Twelve Tables allegedly were written by 10 commissioners (decemvirs) at the insistence of the plebeians,
who felt their legal rights were hampered by the fact that court
judgments were rendered according to unwritten custom preserved only
within a small group of learned patricians.
Beginning work in 451, the first set of commissioners produced 10
tables, which were later supplemented by 2 additional tables. In 450 the
code was formally posted, likely on bronze tablets, in the Roman Forum.

The written recording of the law in the Twelve Tables enabled the
plebeians both to become acquainted with the law and to protect
themselves against patricians’ abuses of power.
The Twelve Tables
were not a reform or a liberalizing of old custom. Rather, they
recognized the prerogatives of the patrician class and of the
patriarchal family, the validity of enslavement for unpaid debt, and the
interference of religious custom in civil cases. That they reveal a
remarkable liberality for their time with respect to testamentary rights
and contracts is probably the result not of any innovations by the
decemvirs but rather of the progress that had been made in commercial
customs in Rome in an era of prosperity and vigorous trade.
Because
only random quotations from the Twelve Tables are extant, knowledge
about their contents is largely derived from references in later
juridical writings. Venerated by the Romans as a prime legal source, the
Twelve Tables were superseded by later changes in Roman law but were
never formally abolished.